The objective of this study is to determine the factors influencing home refinancing among Muslim customers in Malaysia. For conventional banks, the common reasons are interest rate and monthly payment reduction of the loan. However, these reasons might not be applicable for bank customers who refinanced their loans by switching from conventional to Islamic home refinancing schemes. The study distributed 150 survey questionnaires for Muslim bank customers at 11 states and Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur in February to March 2011. The findings indicated that reasons for refinancing were fluctuation of home financing profit rate, reduction of maturity period and monthly payment, good services of new banks and awareness among respondents to align their belief with their daily financial and economic practices. This study enhances the understanding of academics, scholars and bankers on factors influencing home refinancing activities, especially among Muslim customers in Malaysia. It is suggested that the future research can be done to compare home refinancing activities with the real changes in profit rates.

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Halal industry is a vast industry that consists of several sectors; ranging from food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic products, services (i.e. transportation and logistics) and, banking and finance. All these various sectors in the actual state of practices are currently positioned separately. This paper expands the proposal of integrating halal industries with the Islamic funds. Principally, these sectors should not be deemed separately as they are under the same umbrella of Shariah. The collaboration of the industry can lead to harmonious system that can support each other. In this case, the Islamic financial system through Islamic banking and capital market instruments will channel their long term funding to other Halal industry. As the start, it is important to look at the current practices of authority bodies in the sectors of Halal industry (except for Islamic banking and finance) and Islamic capital market. This outlook is prioritized given that the authority bodies will influence the behavior of the players. This paper focuses on Halal industry in Malaysia. Specifically, the main selected documents of the related authority bodies in this industry were assessed to grasp their approaches regarding Shariah compliance approval or Halal recognition. This will contribute to an initiative that can integrate this industry from the policy makers and supervisors' perspective. Finding shows that there are different angles of Halal aspects focused by these authority bodies, and there is a room for adjustment towards integration.

Cases of non-compliance, irregularities and frauds in the government procurement still persist although compliance with Government Procurement Policy (GPP) is mandated by regulations. Complying with procurement standards by law does not necessarily succeeding in implementation of procurement best practices. This paper investigates the moderating impacts of compliance with the GPP on the relationship between the explanatory factors and current Sustainable Public Procurement (SPP) practice in Malaysia, in a comprehensive single framework. Survey questionnaires were administered to 104 government organisations and 177 responses were received from procurement officers. Based on the hierarchical multiple regression analysis, the anticipated outcome of this study is the extent to which the procurement compliance does not guarantee the implementation of SPP practice. The results of this study have provided some explanations regarding the extent of compliance with GPP on the relationship between the explanatory factors and SPP practice.